In the 80s and 90s, before the Big Hard Rock Hotel was built on the Seminole Reservation, If you were traveling southbound on State Road 441 in Broward County, Florida, from the intersection of Griffin Road, you’d come across their giant bingo hall. Large signs affixed to the side would announce the 100,000 thousands of dollars for the next bingo jackpot.
I never played at that bingo hall or at that time any bingo. But I grew up watching bingo. My dad allowed me to tag along while he took his mom and her friends to the Seminole Bingo and other pickup games, like the poker tables of today. I like to remember those elderly ladies my father chauffeured around as the Golden Girls of the bingo hall. Those ladies went to play bingo 3 times a week. Their desire to play the game made me curious about what I missed.
Like a thief with a stolen purse, I would rifle through the bingo bags and look at all the different color number markers my grandmother had. She would use penny-sized multicolored transparent discs as number place marks over the called numbers. They reminded me of communion wafers.
For fun, I would peer through them at the world around me to change the technicolor into shades of green and orange.
The liquid markers were excellent. They were in a bottle with a sponge head. I was told they were for speed bingo, and marking was made easier when the bingo ball caller would rapidly announce the numbers in rapid succession during speed bingo. This allowed her to speed down and plunge that sponge on each card, marking her numbers.
Then I learned they won money! Seems so damn cool to win something by marking numbers on a card. I was told jackpots on pickup games could be $50, $100 or $200! Big jackpots to this child. But nothing more than the Seminole jackpots.
But if my grandmother didn’t win money, it was fine by me. I mostly loved it when she won food passes to the Morrison’s Buffet.
Then, the whole family could devour her winnings in a couple sittings.
Once, my dad allowed me to sit in on a game and watch this form of gambling. I was amazed watching the sea of ladies work over their bingo cards at a feverish pace. And the first time I heard someone shout out, “Bingo!” It scared me. Like a dog in a deep sleep reacting to fireworks.
I didn’t see my grandmother and her friends, the Golden Girls, as old when I was a little boy. I didn’t understand my youth, let alone an advanced-age grandparent. To me, my nana was as cool as the inside of a refrigerator.
My favorite golden girl was her friend, Ida, a fiery redhead who loved to go to Bagel Nosh. She also loved to squeeze my cheeks. She used to tell me I “was so gorgeous” that I “should be in pictures.” I remember her so vividly many years later.
Those Golden Girls are gone, but I love reminiscing about their bingo days and my indoctrination to the game they loved. I do not recall ever winning a game of bingo myself. Maybe because, until this very day, I have never played. But I shout out to these women who loved that game so much.
Hey Golden Girls, BINGO!
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Blake and Max clowning around in the bathroom. March 15, 2021.
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